Zero Brace

Wow. I've been thinking about how to put this into a blog post the past couple of days. I've had a breakthrough with my horsemanship-realizing exactly what the concept of zero brace is, and how to become more interesting for my horse. At one point, for whatever reason, it seemed like Chase wouldn't do what I asked him to until I hung a phase four over his head. Without realizing it, I had gotten into a dangerous pattern of 'make the horse' and being direct-lined, and also-PREDICTABLE. Basically, what's been happening this past month is I'd go to the barn at night, halter my horse when he came to the gate, walk in and flick his butt until he came to me if he didn't, and then rush into the arena to argue with him to get his thrush treated, and then go out and 'play' with him. I say 'play' with quotations because really, it wasn't play. What it turned into was a wrestling match, really. Pretty much a 'do what I say or I'll smack you' (lol!), and while I found a way to do it in a way in which he responded and did what I asked of him on phase one, I had lost something important. And I realized this when my horse stopped greeting me at the gate, instead ignoring me.
Well, yesterday, I went to the barn to try a different strategy. I was going in with an 'I don't care what you do' attitude, to try to mirror him. I didn't care if he followed me or not. I could care less what he did when we got to the arena, in fact, I brought down a chair and sat on it in the middle of the arena and read a book to see what he would do. What ended up happening, was that within 20 minutes he was riveted-wouldn't leave me alone. I couldn't read because he kept putting his nose in the way and slobbering all over the book.
Well, we went to playing, and I kept the same attitude. he offered some things, which gave me a hunch. And today, I acted on that hunch-I changed my attitude. Whenever he didn't do what I wanted, I encouraged what he offered instead, whether it was to avoid doing what I was asking him or not. It didn't matter-we'd get back to what I wanted after. My mind is still blown. I have my horse back-and more than that, we have a partnership. I didn't get angry or frustrated once. Wow. Just, wow. TAKE YOUR HORSES IDEA AND MAKE IT YOUR OWN. DON'T ARGUE WITH YOUR HORSE. ZERO BRACE. BE PROVOCATIVE. O.O WOW. I can't WAIT to see what happens tomorrow! :D